


What shall we die for?

by Countlecterviii



Category: Hannibal (TV), King Arthur (2004)
Genre: Hannibal - Freeform, Hannigram - Freeform, M/M, Tumblr: hannigramholidayexchange, tristhad - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-25
Updated: 2016-12-25
Packaged: 2018-09-11 22:01:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9036080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Countlecterviii/pseuds/Countlecterviii
Summary: A small tristhad fic for chubmoose (tumblr) and I tried to get in the light you mentioned!
I think it's cute (I started writing this and it accidentally ended up smutty so I re-wrote it, apologies if I went overboard!)





	

**Author's Note:**

> A small tristhad fic for chubmoose (tumblr) and I tried to get in the light you mentioned!
> 
> I think it's cute (I started writing this and it accidentally ended up smutty so I re-wrote it, apologies if I went overboard!)

Galahad felt the blood on his face first, the cry second, and the wrench of Tristan’s curved blade from the man’s back third.

The hands around his throat went slack and swift feet regained their balance. Panting to catch his breath in short gasps followed by deep swallows as his hands clasped his knees.

“Your skills as an archer continue to impress me Galahad, but hand to hand, you must be more ruthless.”

The young man’s face flinched in half a snarl, eyes flicking to the taller man before he smiled, like a tearaway adolescent pup. “That word encased in your mouth Tristan merely means more blood thirsty. I do not have a thirst for this.”

“What do you thirst for?” He retorted.

Galahad shook his head, swallowed saliva mixed with blood from his tongue and retrieved his own blade from the muddied ground, wiping the blade with the palm of his hand and flicking it aside. “I thirst for a feeling of home.” His voice was almost soft.

\--

The drinks had flown freely from the late afternoon and well into the night, a rare safe evening from the threat of bandits and in a well-guarded home stead. Arthur’s men drank with a few of the local soldiers.

“Well Galahad is prettier than most of the women we see on the road,” Lancelot laughed, “and much handier with a sword.”

Galahad split the remainder of a beer into Lancelot’s lap as he strolled back to the barrel. “Whoops” he growled, refilling his tankard as Lancelot stormed away, probably to his quarters to change but Galahad didn’t care. Tristan looked up from his knife for the first time that evening to glance in Galahad’s direction, the beginnings of a small recognizing smile ebbed across his face before it returned to its usual contemplative and always prepared half frown. Only a second, and Galahad was sure no one else would ever have noticed the smile even existed.

Other than when they fought, Tristan seemed like a separate entity to the group. He enjoyed his own company but sought an occasional solace with Galahad; the boy was bright, observant, and probably saw Tristan for everything he was and more. He wanted to both crush Galahad’s lack of desire to kill and nurture it; explore it.  
The night ploughed on as it always did, the young man drinking more than he should and Tristan keeping a scouts eye on him as he meandered through the different groups, between women and the other knights and as the fires begun to die, a slow stagger back to his quarters.

Tristan waited one corridor behind; arms folded and leaning against the wall. He heard Galahad’s door close, smiled softly to himself and returned to his own room at the top of the tower. The night was clear and the stars were working hard to guide him, though Tristan feared try as they might, his heart would ignore them fervently.

\--

“Sore head?” Tristan half grinned the next morning. He was wringing his shirt out, he slung it over his shoulder so the fabric hung over his bare back before cupping the water to bring it to his face.

Galahad squinted against the sun, “you drank just as I did, and yet here you are, right as rain, what is your secret?” His eyes tore a look at the older man’s chest before he copied, coating his face in the water in a failed attempt to wake himself up.

“Practice.” He laughed until Gawain joined them, falling into silence and then tearing away from the group to dry his shirt properly.

\--

They were on the road again that afternoon, a surprise call towards the south, outlaws raiding villages and not their usual job but Arthur considered it enough of an emergency to cut their rest short. Tristan had gone ahead, the last of him that Galahad saw reduced to hoof tracks in the ground and a hawk circling above them.

The group didn’t catch up until the end of the day, a clear path forged for them through the forests and valleys. They settled at a lakeside, the water stretching nearly as far as the eye can see and the burnt orange sky dappling on the surface. The camp was set as Tristan returned, his bird sat proudly on his shoulder as he rode and it absently ruffled and pruned its feathers when he stopped. He dismounted and kicked across the pebbles at the shore side to his own small alcove once again apart from the group, but never too far.

Galahad couldn’t find the courage to go to him until after their evening meal. He once again followed Tristan’s forged path, pawing at a large rock to almost climb over before landing deftly in Tristan’s space. He didn’t look up from the fresh apple he was carving with the knife Galahad knew almost constantly resided in Tristan’s boot. “How can I help?”  
“I was thinking-“ Galahad begun before shaking his head and sitting lower down on the same boulder as the older man, he glanced up the sinking sun. “You do so much for us, we wouldn’t survive.”

“If I was not a scout, someone else would be, and when I am too old to scout, you will probably take over.”

“We’ll go home before that- surely?” His voice rose to a boy-like tone.

“I was Arthur’s first, and you, his last. I don’t believe I will return home a warrior, but as someone with too many stories and not the strength to spend a full day on horseback.” 

“We will go home together Tristan, I promise.” He said softly.

The older man looked at him for the first time that evening, then back out to the sun before moving to Galahad’s level. “I- Galahad.” He shook his head. “You call me blood thirsty-“ He tentatively placed the very tips of two fingers on the back of Galahad’s hand before letting them sink over the skin until their hands met fully. “-But everyone enemy I see, every time my life is threatened, I think about home, and that the person in front of me is standing in the way of that and if I just get through, I can be at peace once more.”

“And that is what drives you? To ride further than the rest of us, to ride faster?”

“Deep down, yes. But promise you won’t tell the others.” And a crooked shark toothed smile appeared across his face.


End file.
